Team Sahlen, presented by honeybeeBase.com, entered the final race of the 2024 Season at the New Year’s Eve Endurance Festival at Sebring International Raceway with the Tire Rack – ChampCar Endurance Series. Friday was a great Test Day, as the team was able to get both drivers plenty of seat time in the #942 “Ketchup” Porsche Boxster. Additionally, the Team shook down their 2025 ChampCar rules spec with their #943 “Mustard” Boxster. Much was learned in that test that the team can utilize as they fine tune the set up for next season.
Saturday dawned with damp conditions. The team drew the random starting position of 95th out of the 100 starters. This meant the team would have their work cut out to get to the front of this very competitive field. As the race started, the damp conditions transitioned to wet and then to soaking. This made for very difficult racing, as the track was flooded in some places, and the mist on the back straight made for almost blinding conditions.
The duo of Joe Sahlen and Will Nonnamaker pursued on to make headway forward in each stint. And soon, halfway into the race, the #942 was into the Top 10 Overall. As the race proceeded forward, the many full course cautions led to some great fuel conservation. This led to the team to take the bold strategy to skip a fuel stop at the end of the race and go with driver change only. In so doing, the team avoided the 5 minute mandatory stop when taking fuel, and instead the car was only stationary on pit road for 20 seconds for a driver change. This bold strategy saw the team leap all the way up to 5th Overall at the finish of the 8 hour enduro.
Joe Sahlen shared his thoughts after the race – “Those conditions were horrendous out there today. We kept out of trouble all day. And then the crew came up with the great strategy to skip the fuel for the last stop, and that really catapulted us up the order at the end of the race.”
For Sunday, the team had the good fortune of starting 3rd. This led to the team getting out to an early lead. The team continued to maintain the top spot – conserving fuel to make yellow flag stops. The team was able to continue to gap the field and at the 5 hour mark had a lap and half lead on 2nd place. All was good with 1 hour to go when a lapped down racer spun in front of “Ketchup” in the very fast turn one causing a race ending to the team’s hopes for victory.
Will Nonnamaker shared his thoughts – “Sunday was so heart breaking. Joe Sahlen drove an amazing race all day. The crew had prepped a great car and our strategy was spot on. This is the breaks tough of racing. But I know the whole team will come back strong again in 2025.”
2024 Team Sahlen Campaign Partners:
honeybeeBase.com, Malco Products, Porsche Beachwood, Discovery Parts, Valco Cincinnati with Big Wrench Racing, ECS Tuning, Tarett Engineering, Guard Transmission, HubstandsPRO, Maxima Racing Oil, Pagid Brakes, NGK Spark Plugs, CM Racing Products, Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, Design Engineering Inc., OMP Racing, Bell Racing, Forgeline Wheels, Optima Batteries, All-Fit Automotive, Capri Tools & Eibach
